New metrics report out
Latest posts | Feed | By Mark Brownlow on October 22, 2007
MailerMailer just released their latest benchmark metrics report for the first half of 2007, drawn from an analysis of nearly 270 million emails from around 3,000 senders.Benchmark figures have their critics, which is more to do with how they're used. Just today, for example, Denise Cox reminds us that if you benchmark your own numbers against industry averages, then be sure you and your benchmark source calculate the numbers the same way. And she gives several ways of measuring clickthroughs by way of demonstration.
MailerMailer have been publishing these benchmark reports for a while now. Their value is twofold.
First, they set broad expectation levels for key success metrics. So while we can argue about the value of averages, we can certainly tell if we're doing very badly (or very well) compared to our peers.
More importantly, the benchmarks give us clear hints as to where we might be going wrong and what we can do to improve things.
The report includes open rates and clickthroughs (broken down by industry type, subject line length, list size, send day, email format, number of links, and degree of personalization) and bounce rates.
The results show that all of those breakdown factors impact opens and clicks. So there's the evidence you need to go away and do some tests yourself to see what, for example, shorter subject lines and segmented lists might do for your results.
(Testing is important, because your email program and audience is unique and what holds for the average might not hold for you.)
At a macro level, open rates have declined slightly (likely due to increased image blocking) and clickthrough rates have held steady (why are they not rising?)
And however your own efforts are going, spare a thought for the wholesale/distributor sector, who come in just about last on every metric.
P.S. MarketingSherpa has a longer article evaluating the report's results.
More statistics | Tags: email marketing statistics, email marketing metrics, email benchmarks
[This post brought to you by Campaigner Email Marketing]
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